CCMOA shows recent acquisitions

Thursday

Jan 28, 2010 at 12:01 AM

In 2009, the Cape Cod Museum of Art accepted 146 works of art into its permanent collection. The Recent Gifts and Acquisitions 2009 exhibition which highlights these additions to the collection is on view through March 29. Some of the artists in this exhibition include Gladys Winn Dorfman; Varujan Boghosian; Richard DeQuattro; Arthur Diehl; Remo Farruggio; R. H. Ives Gammell; John Whorf and Peter Hunt.

In 2009, the Cape Cod Museum of Art accepted 146 works of art into its permanent collection. The Recent Gifts and Acquisitions 2009 exhibition which highlights these additions to the collection is on view through March 29. Some of the artists in this exhibition include Gladys Winn Dorfman; Varujan Boghosian; Richard DeQuattro; Arthur Diehl; Remo Farruggio; R. H. Ives Gammell; John Whorf and Peter Hunt.

A museum's collection lies at the heart of its mission and its activities. The Cape Cod Museum of Art was particularly fortunate in 2009 to receive almost 200 objects which have been added to its permanent collection. Gifts from artists and collectors, these paintings, photographs, sculptures, prints and drawings have taken the museum's collection to a new and higher level of excellence. The expansion of the collection allows the museum to mount more challenging exhibitions from its own resources and enables it to lend work more freely to other institutions.

Curator Michael Giaquinto has used the space in the Hope McClennen gallery effectively — breaking out the work selected into sub-groupings and setting up dynamic synergy between and among the various objects.

Impressionism, long an honored tradition on Cape Cod, is represented in this exhibition by several examples. Two stand out for mention. Robert Douglas Hunter is represented by a pastel portrait of Jerry Irmer at age 14. Painted in Provincetown in the 1950s, this sensitive rendering captures the essence of boyhood maturing. Olga Sears's landscape showing a Provincetown house set in a field is a wonderful example of impressionist observation and rendering. Her use of impasto and vigorous brush strokes further evoke the heat of the day.

Cape Cod Museum of Art is located off Route 6A, 60 Hope Lane, on the grounds of Cape Cod Center for the Arts, Dennis. Admission is $8, free for ages 18 and younger and museum members. For more details, call (508) 385-4477.